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Dickinson Era
The Dickinson Era was a period of North American history between the adoption of the Britannic Design in July 1782 and the outbreak of the Trans-Oceanic War in August 1795. It is named for Sir John Dickinson, who served as Viceroy of the newly-created Confederation of North America for most of the period. It was Dickinson who guided the North Americans away from the bitter divisions of the North American Rebellion. Dickinson's biographer Percy Hargrave wrote that "John Burgoyne, Duke of Albany established the C.N.A.; Dickinson assured its permanence." Dickinson had been brought to London in 1780, along with Joseph Galloway, to assist Prime Minister Lord North in drawing up the Design. Lord North was sufficiently impressed with Dickinson to select him as the first Governor General of the Northern Confederation, and Dickinson was duly sworn in on 2 July 1782 in New York City. As Governor General, Dickinson oversaw the transition from martial law under Generals Burgoyne and William Howe to civilian rule. His most pressing problem was an ongoing insurrection in the Green Mountain area of New Hampshire led by several members of the local Allen family. General Howe had been unable to put down the Green Mountain insurrection, in spite of repeated military expeditions to the area. Dickinson had been serving as Governor General of the N.C. for less than two years when he was selected to succeed Burgoyne as Viceroy of the C.N.A. The office of Viceroy had been created with Burgoyne in mind to serve as a representative of the Crown in the councils of the C.N.A. Sobel states that Dickinson proved tactful at all times in his relationship with Parliament and King George III, and demonstrated an unsuspected skill in dealing with the governors-general of the Loyalist confederations of Quebec, Indiana, and Manitoba, who were suspicious of the inhabitants of the two rebel confederations. In any event, the Loyalist confederations were so remote from the former Thirteen Colonies that there was little interaction between them, apart from a threatened border war between Quebec and the N.C. in 1788 (the border in question presumably being Quebec's with the northern region of Massachusetts' District of Maine, though Sobel doesn't say so). Under George Clinton, who succeeded Dickinson as Governor General of the N.C., that confederation experienced steady economic growth as immigration increased Pennsylvania's grain production, and British investment in Massachusetts textile mills brought prosperity there. New York City outgrew Boston as an export terminus for the confederation's products, as well as becoming the social and intellectual center of the N.C. Sobel quotes Clinton expressing relief over the failure of the Rebellion: "We may thank Providence the Rebellion did not succeed. Cast adrift on a sea of international intrigue, we would have foundered and been destroyed. Our present prosperity can be ascribed to our harmonious relations with other parts of the Empire, and the protection of the Royal Navy. Together we control a continent, perhaps the world. Singly, we would perish before those envious of our wealth." The Southern Confederation also saw increased prosperity as its slave-based production of tobacco and other cash crops expanded past the Appalachian Mountains into the interior of the continent. Unlike in the N.C., the economy of the S.C. remained fragmented, as each of the confederation's five provinces oversaw the expansion of its trade with London. This fragmentation was reflected in the confederation's government, with Governor General John Connolly and the Southern Confederation Council serving mainly as figureheads while the individual provincial governors, especially Theodorick Bland of Virginia, exercised real power. Although he had participated in the Rebellion, serving in the Continental Army under George Washington, Bland had come to reject its ideals by the 1780s. He spurned efforts by Dickinson and Clinton to promote inter-confederation cooperation, and instead blamed Northerners for the outbreak of the Rebellion. At a meeting of the S.C. Council in 1788, he said, "Even before the Rebellion our products supported the English people in America, while our 'friends to the North' made do through piracy and other illegal acts. The Rebellion began in the North, and Northerners remain rebels at heart." When word of Bland's remarks reached Clinton, he protested to Connolly, but his fellow governor general did nothing. Clinton also pointed out Bland's participation in the Rebellion, and sneered that "our friend from Virginia is a man of great sensitivity. He left the rebel cause only a month after Saratoga. Had the victory not been won, today he would be toasting the health of General Gates and others of his stripe." Later, in 1790, Clinton remarked, "Here we are, situated between brothers in Quebec and the Southern Confederation, and both prepared to dismember us at the slightest provocation." The clashes between North and South had deeper causes than the personalities of their leaders. There was little commerce between the two confederations; both sold most of their products to Europe, and the two confederations competed with each other for access to British investment capital. Sobel expresses surprise at the lack of cooperation between the various confederations of the C.N.A., but it could be argued that the Design was meant to isolate the confederations rather than unite them, the better to prevent the colonists from joining together in another Rebellion. By the early 1790s, settlement in the province of Georgia was spreading south towards Florida, which had been regained by Spain during or shortly after the Rebellion. Georgian settlers suffered from raids by the Seminoles, and responded with a series of counter-raids into Spanish Florida. By 1795, open warfare between Florida and the Southern Confederation contributed to the outbreak of the Trans-Oceanic War in Europe. ---- Sobel's sources for the Dickinson Era are Joseph Clinton's The Life of George Clinton and the Clinton Family of the Northern Confederation (New York, 1882); Sir Humphrey Grey's Particularism and Colonial Rights in the Southern Confederation (London, 1940); Percy Harcourt's The Vipers in their Bosoms: Clinton and Bland in 1788 (London, 1956); Hargrave's Dickinson of North America 6 vols. (London, 1960-66); and Robert Duffy's George Clinton: The New York Magician (New York, 1968). ---- This is the Featured Article for the month of August 2015. Category:Historical eras Category:Featured Articles